The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

A book review

The Sunne in Splendour is a political story that, first and foremost, is intensely human. It is about two Yorkist kings of England, Edward IV and his much maligned brother Richard III. The title refers to Edward's battle flag, and the novel begins in 1459, a year of vicious fighting in the Wars of the Roses, waged between the Lancaster and York descendants of Edward III. The feeble-minded Lancastrian Henry VI had essentially ceded the rule to his hated French wife, Margaret of Anjou, whom Penman's novel does nothing to rehabilitate. Instead, the focus is on intimate, deeply sympathetic portraits of Edward and Richard of York.

Edward has an instinct for the gracious gesture. Among the London crowds who greet him as their deliverer is a young girl. "For an instant, their fingers touched and then he held her gift aloft, a scarf of bright bold colors, upon which had been stitched, with incredible patience and perseverance, a blazing sun on a field of white roses. Edward now brandished the scarf for all to see, and then, to the wild cheering of the crowd, he knotted it about his throat so that it caught the breeze, fluttered out jauntily behind him." Ironically, his great mistake was his choice of wife, the stunningly beautiful but politically tone-deaf Elizabeth Woodville, whose large, ambitious family did nothing to enhance the stability of Edward's government.

Richard, however, is the center of The Sunne in Splendour. From his childish decision to accept responsibility for a misdeed of his adored elder brother until his death on the battlefield, Penman portrays him as a caring, loyal and thoughtful figure with great nobility of spirit. The love story of Richard and his queen is tender and moving. Penman offers an alternative to the tale of the "Princes in the Tower" whom Richard is supposed to have murdered. A brief historical note summarizes the evidence for her theory. (1982, 936 pages)